Bert Niesters (1958) studied biology and chemistry in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. After obtaining his PhD in Utrecht on the molecular epidemiology of infectious bronchitis virus, he worked as a post-doctoral fellow with Jim and Ellen Strauss at the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, USA) on the replication of Alphaviruses. He received a Niels Stensen fellowship (The Netherlands) and an E.S.Gosney fellowship (Caltech) during this period.
After returning to the Netherlands (1989), he moved to clinical virology at the Erasmus Medical Centre with Ab Osterhaus. In 2007, he became a full professor and director of the Laboratory of Clinical Virology within the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Prevention at the University Medical Center Groningen.
He has been focusing on molecular diagnostics and its clinical value in a transplant setting as well as in monitoring the treatment of hepatitis viruses. Recently, his interest focused on rapid regional epidemiology, as well as the cost-benefit of rapid point-of-impact molecular testing. Special interest is focused on raising awareness for the detection of enterovirus-D68 and its relationship with acute flaccid myelitis.
Since 2017, he is chair of the executive board of QCMD (Quality Control of Molecular Diagnostics, Glasgow). He is a lead auditor for the Dutch Council of Accreditation and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Virology. For his work, he received in 2016 the “Ed Nowakowski Senior Memorial Clinical Virology Award” from the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology.